


All Together Now

by Themistoklis



Category: Toy Story Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/pseuds/Themistoklis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things haven't been the same between Buzz, Jessie, and Woody since Bo has been gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Together Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allthingsholy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthingsholy/gifts).



> Thanks to politicette for beta services.

The questions started as soon as the lid on the box closed.

Still in the room, and still in Andy's arms (in a way), the other toys couldn't do more than sit up and stare at Woody. He righted his hat on his head and pulled himself into a corner, drew his long limbs close to his body until Jessie grabbed at one wrist and Buzz grabbed at the other and they both _stared_ , eyes wide and fixed on his.

He looked down at his boots and kept still. They fell around a little as the box jostled at Andy's side, Rex waving his arms and squeaking a little as he toppled onto his back, but neither Buzz nor Jessie let go of him. They rode it together, and as soon as Andy had wedged the box into the back of the car, Jessie clambered up into his lap, her skinny arms wrapping around his neck.

"What are you doing, Sheriff?" she whispered, kissing his cheek. He looped his arm around her waist and tried to smile at her, an ache in his chest making it hard.

"What's happening, Woody?" Buzz asked. He squeezed Woody's hand and crept up to his side, the three of them huddled in the corner while the others sorted themselves out.

Woody held Buzz's hand tight, and pulled Jessie as close to him as their bodies would allow, tilting his head back a little so she could tuck hers against his shoulder. His arm tingled a little bit as Buzz brought his other hand up to draw circles on his palm.

The box rocked gently as Andy started up the engine and eased the car away from the house. Away from home.

"It's going to be all right," Woody murmured, looking up at them both.

\---

Buzz and Jessie didn't start to notice his trips to the windowsill until the newness had started to wear off of their new life at Bonnie's house, which took a few weeks.

He didn't notice them noticing until Jessie found a loose button to hurl at him one day. It nearly knocked his hat off his head, and him off his perch. He swung his feet over the ledge and let them dangle, bending over to peer down at the floor.

Jessie put her hands on her hips. A couple of inches behind her, Buzz had his arms at his sides. He kept glancing back and forth between them.

"Why're you hiding from us?" Jessie asked, cocking her hips to one side. "Don't you want to want to come watch the movie?"

The toys started off the week with Movie Mondays. Trixie knew how to find that sort of thing on the computer, and it was a tradition that had been in place before they'd come here. They were watching something with singing and animals this week, a movie Woody mostly remembered from being carried to the theater in Andy's backpack when it had first come out.

"Sometimes I just like to come up here to think," he said, squinting down at them.

Buzz stepped forward. "Would you like some company?"

Woody smiled and shook his head. "I'm okay," he said. "I think I'm just going to sit this one out. You two go watch the movie without me."

Silently, Buzz and Jessie looked at each other. Something at the bottom of Woody's stomach twisted and coiled when they looked back at him, a smug smirk on Jessie's face.

"No can do, partner," she said.

It only took a couple of jumps for her to get up to his side, where she promptly pressed her hands and face to the glass. Woody rolled his eyes and stretched his arm out for Buzz, who took his hand and swung up onto the sill with them, standing while Woody spun around, still

"What're you looking at up here?" Jessie asked, looking over her shoulder at them. Squatting in front of the pane with both her elbows up, she looked a bit like a spider, and Woody knew from experience she could move like one, getting _anywhere_ you might need to be.

He shrugged, careful not to push off the arm Buzz had rested over his shoulders.

"You've never been a man of few words," Buzz said. "Are you sure you're feeling up to snuff?"

"I'm fine," Woody drawled.

Jessie took her hands off the glass and turned around, tucking her legs underneath her. She stared up at him, her lips pursed. He glanced over at Buzz, who was looking at him the same way he looked at Bonnie's cardboard spaceship when one of the wings ripped, like he could see the schematics underneath.

Woody smiled at them. "I've got you two, don't I?"

\---

And he did, most of the time.

But Jessie and Buzz had their music. They shared it with everyone, using Bonnie's music player and putting on shows that rivaled Mr. Pricklepants' plays, but the music, the time, belonged to them.

Woody was allowed to watch. Along with everyone else.

Sometimes he thought Jessie really liked having other people watching -- she had Buzz practically fling her into the audience, sometimes -- and sometimes he wondered if the two of them ever dragged the music player to the hall closet or crept back into Bonnie's room when the rest of them were distracted with something else. He tried to pay attention, tried to notice if the two of them ever left him alone, with everyone else, but if Jessie wasn't in the room then Buzz was, and the other way around.

It made something ache in Woody's chest. He thought he could rip through all the stuffing in his chest and still not get to it.

When Jessie tossed him flowers from the dance floor, and when Buzz winked, Woody waved.

\---

Sometimes he walked up to the music player when it wasn't being used, when everyone was in another part of the room. Sometimes he wondered if he would be able to move it by himself, set it up so that when he brought Jessie into the hall closet it would just -- be there, ready for them.

He'd had Bo and the sheep to help, before. And he and Bo and Buzz and Jessie -- they'd shared it. The music hadn't been Buzz and Jessie dancing. It'd been. All of them, Bo learning to lead because Buzz was too nervous to toss her the way Jessie had made him and Woody learn how, Jessie figuring out a little routine for the two of them with Bo's crook, Buzz finding a place on Woody's leg to brace his hand so he could dip Woody backwards, Woody trading hats with Jessie.

All they'd had was swing music.

\---

On a trip to the doctor's office, Mom let Bonnie take the three of them in the back seat. Bonnie was lifted out without them, though, protests met with assertions that they couldn't be around the other toys in the waiting room, or they would get sick, too.

Half-covered under a blanket, all it would take was a wriggle for them to be hidden from anyone walking by.

They could curl up together, talk about the sleepover that Bonnie was going to be throwing the next week if the doctor's visit worked out well, talk about the new play Mr. Pricklepants was putting on with Dolly playing Viola/Cesario, talk about the heart sticker that had been stuck to the panel of Buzz's commlink for a week now, hold hands and not talk at all.

None of them made a move to hide under the blanket.

Woody tilted his chin up so he could look out the window at the tree above the car.

\---

"I miss her too."

Buzz and Jessie looked up from the puzzle they'd been kneeling over. Woody had come to them with his hat in his hands, and he met both of their eyes before carefully sitting down and placing it in his lap.

"We haven't been the same since Bo left," he said, fingering the stitching on the brim of his hat. He watched Jessie ease herself down onto the image of a horse's hoof. "And," he said, swallowing, "part of that's my fault."

Buzz tried to mimic the cross-legged way they were sitting and ended up with his legs sprawled in front of him, like he always did. Woody had to curl his fingers inward to keep himself from reaching out to lay his hand over Buzz's ankle. Jessie was too far away for him to touch.

"I left you. The both of you," Woody murmured. Jessie looked down at her boots and Buzz tilted his head to one side, his breathing slow and steady. "And I'm… sorry."

Looking at both of them, Jessie reached a hand out and crawled forward an inch, her knees brushing against Buzz's feet and her fingertips finding the stitching in Woody's hat. She held on tight and Woody stopped fidgeting.

"Wasn't all your fault, Sheriff," Buzz murmured. He raised a hand and curled his fingers in. "This was a team effort."

"Yeah," Woody breathed. "But I'm supposed to take care of you two."

"We should take care of each _other_ ," Jessie said, rocking forward on her knees. They both looked at her and she ducked her head before squaring her shoulders and picking her chin up. "Team effort."

They looked at each other, and the ache in the middle of Woody's chest pulsed. He gently took his hat from Jessie's hands and placed it back on his hands, finding the angle that would let it slide and stick into place.

He put his arm around Jessie's waist, and the other around Buzz's shoulders, and they left the puzzle undone in favor of walking over to the wall to see if the window was open. It wasn't, but between the three of them they managed to get it open enough to slide underneath. Woody worried his arm might come unraveled, but it didn't, and Buzz caught his hat when the wind knocked it off his head.

If anyone wondered where they went for the rest of the afternoon, they must not have actually worried about it, because no one said a thing when they crept back through the window as the car pulled back into the driveway from Sunnyside.

Someone had put the puzzle away for them.

\---

On the follow-up trip to the doctor's office, Mom let Bonnie take the three of them in the back seat again. Bonnie climbed out without them, though, turning around to whisper to them quietly that they couldn't be around the other toys in the waiting room, or they would get sick, too. She would take them in if she could, but she didn't want them to get sick like she did, since it would take a while to cook up medicine for the three of them.

Half-covered under a blanket, they wriggled underneath to be hidden from anyone walking by.

"Do you remember that time Andy brought his friend's parrot over to bird-sit and it got out while he was at school?" Jessie asked. She sprawled across Buzz's lap and pulled Woody close so all six of their legs were tangled together.

Woody chuckled. "Yeah. And it kept stealing the army men before taking both of Potato Head's eyes."

"That was not normal parrot behavior," Buzz said, which made Jessie curl up on herself and bite her lip. Woody had to think she'd be covering her mouth with her hands if she wasn't holding on to both of theirs. "I'm serious," Buzz insisted, narrowing his eyes at them. "That parrot was a trained operative or something."

"Uh-huh," Woody drawled. "Which is why you kept lookout while Jessie and I did all the rescuing."

"I am very _shiny!_ " Buzz growled, but he's grinning. "It would have tried to bite my head off."

"It's okay, Buzz," Jessie said, kissing his cheek. The grin disappeared in favor of a blush. "You were a great lookout."

Woody put his head on Jessie's chest and shut his eyes. It was okay, not being able to see out of the window. And a minute later they found a CD Mom must have lost between the cushions, and it wasn't too hard to slide it into Bonnie's backpack. They could put it back in the car later, in plain sight, where Mom could find it.

Swing music.


End file.
